


Daddy's Girls

by gala_apples



Series: SKV [2]
Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Confessions, Gen, Murder, Religious Content, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ryan's dad finds God, she's forced to try. Brenda already knows exactly how to please God.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daddy's Girls

**Author's Note:**

> A genderswitch SKV AU. This was written for a challenge at [Picfor1000](http://community.livejournal.com/picfor1000/). This is the picture:
> 
> [](http://photobucket.com)

Ryan is sixteen when her dad decides to try sobriety again. Normally she doesn’t let herself think about it. Every time he tries and fails it only hurt more. It’s less self destructive to let her father do his own thing. 

This time it’s different. He always stalls out at a different step. Sometimes it’s the moral inventory. He doesn’t like to admit he has faults, the qualities that he has to admit to are the ones he likes to ignore under a blanket of rum. Sometimes it’s the reconciliation. Apologizing to others is difficult, especially when it’s other men at the bar. Once he went in to apologize to Michael for throwing a stool at him and came out three sheets to the wind. This time he gets caught on step three. It doesn’t let him fall back into the bottle, that Ryan would know how to deal with. Instead he takes it far too much to heart. He becomes a heartfelt believer in God, certain that the only way to save himself from the depths of a bottle is to pray until his knees and knuckles ache.

Eventually that becomes not enough. She should have seen it coming, but Spencer’s always telling her that her meticulously planned actions mean nothing in her own home, that she wears blinders when it comes to her father. She can’t help that it surprises her the first time he starts reciting passages to her, memorized with the same part of his brain that holds a dozen often rotated rants. He needs to save her, even though she hasn’t done anything she considers evil. 

She goes to church with him because it’s easier than not going. Ryan knows the names of everyone before she walks in, though she can’t match them to faces. Her father talks about them constantly at home, as though he’s known them his entire life. He doesn’t bother with Alcoholics’ Anonymous anymore, just comes to the church every spare moment he has. 

They know her name too. He’s been telling tales of her, blowing up styling her hair into vanity and skipping gym to sloth. She stands in the middle of the stage as the preacher asks for anyone willing to pledge to Christ that they’ll help save her soul to come to the stage. By the time he finishes speaking there’s a ring of a dozen people on their knees at her feet. 

She keeps going. The pledges have her phone number, they call multiple times a day to make sure she’s not indulging in anything dangerous. If she didn’t go to church they wouldn’t stop calling. They would probably swarm her house if she stopped answering. It’s just easier to hide her contempt, steel her face and let them speak as her mind drifts into places of lyrics and chords.

When they’ve decided that she’s learned enough Ryan finds out she’s being baptized. She’s not sure if she was as an infant, once in a drunken rage her dad burned all the photo albums. They chose a dress for her and instruct her on the few words she needs to say. The entire congregation drives to the nearest lake and look at her expectantly until she takes off her flats. At first she holds up her dress as she wades in, but she knows better than to hold it higher than her knees, and she’s expected to walk all the way to the preacher. The algae slick sand is cold against her feet as the water creeps higher. 

The preacher is taller than her, or he’s standing on a sand bar. By the time Ryan gets to him, she’s up to her elbows. There is another girl standing with him. Ryan knows the girl in the white dress isn’t another newly converted. Brenda is the preacher’s daughter, the purest specimen the church has. 

He says the words he’s compelled to. Ryan doesn’t hear them, lets them float through her. There’s nothing lyrical in them, nothing that speaks to her. When he’s finished Brenda puts palm on her forehead, a hand on her shoulder. She pushes her into the water and holds her in it. Everything looks brown and silty for a moment before Ryan closes her eyes. There’s no sense in struggling, it will only ruin the ceremony. 

After, Brenda leads Ryan to the shore. They sit and Ryan knows the bottom of her dress will be covered in sand. It doesn’t bother her that it might be ruined. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to wear this dress again. It appears to be what the congregation expects, they drift to their cars, leaving the two teenagers to shiver against the slight wind.

“Do you believe now?”

“No. I did this for him. It’ll make us family for a few weeks before he starts drinking again.” Spencer says she never learns. Spencer’s usually right. 

“Sometimes I want to really send people to God.” Brenda looks at her. She blinks before continuing, voice quieter but full of pride. “I did, once. A cousin of mine. He was sinning, having premarital sex. He laughed at me when I said I was going to pray over him, but he stopped laughing when I threatened to tell dad what he did. I pushed him into the waters of God. I saved him.”

Ryan looks at her for a moment, then back at the damp fabric on her knees. It sounds like a confession, and who better for it than an atheist? 

“Did you tell anyone?”

Brenda shakes her head once. “I wanted to tell dad. But it would ruin everything if he wasn’t a true believer. God and I don’t want to lose him.”

Ryan can understand the shape of that, if not the make of it. She doesn’t reply, just leans her wet and ratted hair onto Brenda’s shoulder. It will make a damp spot, but Brenda won’t care. She’s beyond matters of the flesh, Ryan knows that much.


End file.
